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I don't have any style feat suggestions. What do you want the Bladecraft Weapon Focus tree to do?

I think I'm okay with Mystic Blade being a feat. It makes things that aren't actually weapons count as weapons, making it a feat tax makes sense from a logical perspective (if they don't count as weapons for anything else they don't count as weapons for Bladecraft automatically) and will probably make it easier for DMs to stomach because it isn't another thing that spellcasters can just be awesome at because reasons for no extra effort.

For the Special Rules, IMO unarmed just needs a section on TWF with unarmed strikes for the purposes of Bladecraft (because honestly I don't think there are any actual rules on the subject). I'm not sure what you would do for Aerial, but for Aquatic you could steal from Pathfinder.

Pathfinder has a condition called "off-balance". Aquatic Adventures has the following rule in it: "Being pronedoesn’t mean much for a swimming creature, so instead, a successful trip against a swimming creature forces that creature to attempt a Swim check at a DC equal to the result of the combat maneuver check to trip; failing the Swim check causes the creature to become oﬀ-balance. Many aquatic creatures can’t be tripped or have a high Swim bonus and thus can always take 10, so this tactic isn’t always eﬀective, but when it is, it can make dexterous foes much easier to hit. However, being oﬀ-balance doesn’t aﬀect most of the target’s attack rolls, and the target can regain its balance simply by succeeding at a Swim check to move on its next turn as normal."

Style feats already exist, so you might want to find another name. They were introduced in Complete Warrior and showed up in a few books afterwards. They give you a mediocre benefit for using a specific combination of weapons, armor, shields, etc. and usually require a bunch of feats as prerequisites. Some are actually okay, but most are kinda wasteful.

I don't have any style feat suggestions. What do you want the Bladecraft Weapon Focus tree to do?

The point of the normal WF tree is to give you bonuses for using (focusing on) a particular weapon. It's just that the bonuses are so, so terrible. So I'd like to do something like that, but make it actually interesting.

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I think I'm okay with Mystic Blade being a feat. It makes things that aren't actually weapons count as weapons, making it a feat tax makes sense from a logical perspective (if they don't count as weapons for anything else they don't count as weapons for Bladecraft automatically) and will probably make it easier for DMs to stomach because it isn't another thing that spellcasters can just be awesome at because reasons for no extra effort.

OK, cool. Is it ok as written? Or does it need any clarification?

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For the Special Rules, IMO unarmed just needs a section on TWF with unarmed strikes for the purposes of Bladecraft (because honestly I don't think there are any actual rules on the subject). I'm not sure what you would do for Aerial, but for Aquatic you could steal from Pathfinder.

Pathfinder has a condition called "off-balance". Aquatic Adventures has the following rule in it: "Being pronedoesn’t mean much for a swimming creature, so instead, a successful trip against a swimming creature forces that creature to attempt a Swim check at a DC equal to the result of the combat maneuver check to trip; failing the Swim check causes the creature to become oﬀ-balance. Many aquatic creatures can’t be tripped or have a high Swim bonus and thus can always take 10, so this tactic isn’t always eﬀective, but when it is, it can make dexterous foes much easier to hit. However, being oﬀ-balance doesn’t aﬀect most of the target’s attack rolls, and the target can regain its balance simply by succeeding at a Swim check to move on its next turn as normal."

Excellent, thank you for that source. I was actually most concerned about Aquatic.

Style feats already exist, so you might want to find another name. They were introduced in Complete Warrior and showed up in a few books afterwards. They give you a mediocre benefit for using a specific combination of weapons, armor, shields, etc. and usually require a bunch of feats as prerequisites. Some are actually okay, but most are kinda wasteful.

UGH I forgot about those. Stuff like Lightning Mace, right?

I really am not sure what else to call them. Blade Style feats? Adding Blade to everything is getting tedious.

Style feats already exist, so you might want to find another name. They were introduced in Complete Warrior and showed up in a few books afterwards. They give you a mediocre benefit for using a specific combination of weapons, armor, shields, etc. and usually require a bunch of feats as prerequisites. Some are actually okay, but most are kinda wasteful.

UGH I forgot about those. Stuff like Lightning Mace, right?

I really am not sure what else to call them. Blade Style feats? Adding Blade to everything is getting tedious.

Why not make them Tactical feats? They already have the same format. Just give each of the three sub-effects a little name of its own and you're done.

Style feats already exist, so you might want to find another name. They were introduced in Complete Warrior and showed up in a few books afterwards. They give you a mediocre benefit for using a specific combination of weapons, armor, shields, etc. and usually require a bunch of feats as prerequisites. Some are actually okay, but most are kinda wasteful.

UGH I forgot about those. Stuff like Lightning Mace, right?

I really am not sure what else to call them. Blade Style feats? Adding Blade to everything is getting tedious.

Why not make them Tactical feats? They already have the same format. Just give each of the three sub-effects a little name of its own and you're done.

What about the whole "you can't learn more than one of each complexity" part? Should I just throw that under "special" and specify the exclusions?

What about the whole "you can't learn more than one of each complexity" part? Should I just throw that under "special" and specify the exclusions?

Why is that limit there in the first place? What purpose does it serve for the game balance or the bladecraft fantasy/concept?

Regardless, if you keep it, you should spell it out more explicitly. Something like "This feat is a Basic/Moderate/etc. bladecraft tactical feat. You cannot select it if you already have another bladecraft tactical feat of the same complexity." Mind you, if the limit stays, I'd rather it be something along the lines of being unable to use them simultaneously, rather than being barred from multiples entirely.

What about the whole "you can't learn more than one of each complexity" part? Should I just throw that under "special" and specify the exclusions?

Why is that limit there in the first place? What purpose does it serve for the game balance or the bladecraft fantasy/concept?

Regardless, if you keep it, you should spell it out more explicitly. Something like "This feat is a Basic/Moderate/etc. bladecraft tactical feat. You cannot select it if you already have another bladecraft tactical feat of the same complexity." Mind you, if the limit stays, I'd rather it be something along the lines of being unable to use them simultaneously, rather than being barred from multiples entirely.

So, I have some ideas for some unusual interactions between subsystems upon Bladecraft. Mostly regarding having Bladecraft as a component of what other subsystems do.

In the case of spells, the spell could use a Bladecraft technique for a somatic component, allowing for that particular spell to be cast in the same action as that particular technique, and Silent Spell allows the spell to be used without the associated technique.

The second, obviously, is Maneuvers that require the use of Techniques as part of their use. The sword-swing of the Technique is the sword-swing of the Maneuver. This means careful selection of linked effects to make it not entirely broken, mind you. The idea would be a few Disciplines that draw from bundles of Styles for Techniques to stack Maneuvers on top of.

An example of a somatic Bladecraft spell is having a Vampiric "Strike" that deals 1d6, max 20d6, damage per CL, with the iconic temp HP equal to damage dealt, using a Technique like Black Lance's Last Strike(lower complexity implementation of the concept of backlash-by-counterattack, obviously), possibly with one of the Blood Style double-techniques so that the temp HP can be there before the backlash, as the somatic component. However, it's a 6th level spell(4th for Duskblades), which leaves it wildly underpowered for a spell of that level. But it functionally gives an extra Standard Action, of a particularly useful sort.

An example of a Bladecraft Discipline is using Maneuvers to specifically counter downsides for Techniques from many Styles that fit together as "risky" styles, like Black Lance's Last Strike being paired with a Maneuver that gives temp HP, delayed damage pool or other damage mitigation to be much more likely to survive the counterattack. The limits on use of Maneuvers make it so that it's not going to be spammed to cover weaknesses every time a Technique with a significant downside is used, unless you like burning rounds on Adaptive Style.

A more grounded idea is a set of Styles based on IRL airplane design philosophies. High-altitude bombers striking from unassailable positions, the SR-71 Blackbird's silly "outrun enemy attacks" spyplane strategy, the rushing impact of dive-bombers and frantic agile-yet-(relatively)-slow dogfighters make for the four "easy" idea options. I'd put the Blackbird-based one at Advanced because... Well, the idea is to never be hit because the enemy is never in range, always working to get close enough to hit. This is "move 15-20 ft. as an Immediate Action" territory. Not quite silly enough in mechanical implementation to warrant Master use, but not something you want to make casual use of.

...Is it inherently against the rules to make a Style that goes the whole way through? Because that'd give a significant amount of room to extend the existing Styles forward and backward. Extending Blood Style backwards to include much more basic Techniques that just give partially variable granted tags or minor improvements to other Techniques, like one extra Bladecraft die or giving a minor AC bonus/minor Moral penalty to the enemy.